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beingallelite · 5 years ago

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There's a swarm of people in the building with him, and everyone seems to be working on four things at once. The most pressing project is a scramble to get the latest edition of Road to AEW on TNT up on the fledgling promotion's YouTube channel. Editors jump from computer to computer. All Elite Wrestling's Oct. 2 debut on TNT is weeks away, but the rush is on.

And Cody is in his element.

He, too, is doing four things at once. Gossiping about Chris Jericho's recent lost-and-found escapades with the AEW championship belt. Keeping track of announcer Tony Schiavone as he fights his way here through traffic. Strategizing with members of his team as they plot out story arcs for a wrestling character called "The Substitute" that they invented on the spot when Cody found out that Charlie "Clothesline" Ramone, one of the jack-of-all-trades trainees in his entourage, used to be a substitute teacher.

Oh, and being interviewed. Constantly in motion.

The desk is not his, nor is the building on the outskirts of Atlanta, nor even most of the video team. It's all largesse provided by wrestling legend "Diamond" Dallas Page, who has let the AEW team all but take over his DDP Yoga studio as it launches what could end up being the first true competitor to WWE that wrestling has seen in decades.

When Page walks in, Cody quickly replaces his nameplate with Page's, a bit they would later modify and steal for YouTube.

The mood is light, and Cody's eyes are bright, despite a schedule that would break most mortal men.

It's an energy level that is both exhausting and exhilarating to be around—and those in his wake say this is how Cody operates nearly 24 hours a day. He isn't merely a vice president for the purpose of YouTube sketches. He's working hard, seemingly nonstop, on getting the promotion off the ground. If he's not in a conference call to discuss business operations and budget, he's in one for marketing or for creative concerns.

Or, as he will later this day, he's sneaking in a workout, a reminder that in addition to his many duties in the office, Cody still has to step into the ring and deliver a world-class match, whether against Sammy Guevara in the opening night on TNT or in a title match against Jericho at AEW Full Gear, the company's next pay-per-view, scheduled for Nov. 9.

It's a delicate balance—the same one his late father, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, pulled off for years as both one of wrestling's most potent in-ring attractions and one of its most powerful behind-the-scenes forces.

"I've never seen him not in this mode," Page said of Cody. "His old man was always positive, too. It didn't matter how gloomy s--t was, he never sold it. I would be like, 'Dream, how do you stay so positive?' He's like, 'That's the only way to be. You can't sell it, D. You can't let them feel it.' He was saying, 'Don't let them ever see sweat' before it was a commercial.

"Cody has that same confidence."

Schiavone sees the same quality. "He draws people to him. I think he's a natural leader like his dad was. His dad used to say, 'You've got to be able to walk a room like Richard Nixon.' Dusty always said that Richard Nixon could walk a room better than anybody. Dusty was like that, and I think Cody's like that too. I think you're immediately drawn to his confidence and the way he presents himself."

This, Page adds, is exactly what gave Cody the guts to walk away from WWE in the first place, despite being pretty much guaranteed a seven-figure paycheck and an all-but-guaranteed lifetime position with the leading company in his field.

He couldn't imagine life as just another corporate cog, a life where he never gave it his best shot.

"He wasn't afraid to walk away from the table because he knew he had something. Really had it," Page said. "And it don't matter who else sees it. He did."

And AEW will need every bit of that bravado.

Yes, it has the backing of the billionaire Khan family, which also owns the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars among its many assets. Yes, it has a time slot on TNT, one of cable television's premium outlets (and, full disclosure, a corporate partner of Bleacher Report). Those are solid underpinnings to build on.

But entering what wrestling fans are calling the "Wednesday Night Wars," a head-to-head showdown with WWE—which is airing its own popular NXT show in the same time slot as AEW on TNT—this is still very much a startup trying to disrupt a corporate beast.

To succeed, it will need to summon every bit of bravado and energy and leadership Cody has in him.

If it does, it will be remembered as the culmination of a rivalry between two families as alike as they are opposites—families with the drive, creativity, energy and force of will to take a wild and woolly business in their hands and mold it into something remarkable.

While the leading roles in front of the camera have been played by Hulk Hogan and The Rock and Ric Flair, the Rhodeses and the McMahons have spent decade after decade battling for wrestling's very soul. Theirs is the story of two proud families, two distinct visions and just one business—one that the younger Rhodes is betting is big enough for both of them.

A Dream and a Rivalry

Dusty first became a force on the regional wrestling scene in the late 1970s and continued right through the fearsome battles of the '80s. Even in a world filled with big men and even bigger personalities, he was larger than life—275 pounds of blue-eyed soul who became one of the sport's true national acts thanks to the power of Ted Turner's SuperStation WTBS, one of the first cable stations widely available around the country.

His connection with the audience was legendary. In his most famous interview, he literally reached out to the camera, inviting viewers to do the same at home, to touch his hand so they might fight the good fight together. It's enough to give you shivers: emotional, powerful and poignant.

"When he talked, people f--king bought it," said Page, a family confidante. "Because he believed it. Invested 100 percent."

Dusty was savvy enough to make his greatest weakness a strength. Even in his younger days, tight perm shimmering with either sweat or blood, depending on how the match was going, he had a jiggle. By his 30s, there is no polite euphemism for what he was—a fat guy in a muscle man's sport.

Rather than work against him, his appearance was a differentiator. Dusty sashayed around the ring as the avatar of every guy in the audience who had gone slightly to pot but still fancied himself a tough guy despite outward appearances. He was the common man who hid heart, guts and sinew beneath a healthy protective layer of flesh.

But as big as he was in the ring, it was outside the squared circle where he truly made his mark on the industry. He had a vision for wrestling that was bigger than studio television, too big to be limited to National Guard Armories and the like in Florida.

His dream for America was an American Dream: big, grandiose, sometimes crazy and foolish—blood-and-guts action paired with powerful interviews—fueled by borrowed money and hope.

What it wasn't was boring, even for a second.

He created the modern wrestling supershow with Starrcade in 1983 and then powered Jim Crockett Promotions through the early stages of the wrestling wars with idea after idea—a series of stadium shows called the Great American Bash, an ultraviolent spectacle called WarGames and the cable television special Clash of the Champions, to name just a few.

"I don't think people realize the importance of what Dad did in the early 1980s," Cody said. "Boxing comes along later, but before all that, Vince and Dusty put pay-per-view on a map. And it's cool: Every year at the Hall of Fame, when my dad was still alive, he would kind of count the number of people who thanked him. Jokingly, he'd nudge you. Like eight people every year would say, 'Man, thanks Dusty for giving me my start. Without you, none of this would have happened.'"

The other version of wrestling was glitzier, a human cartoon. But while most critics preferred the Rhodes brand, Vince McMahon and his WWE won the wrestling war. Dusty had to swallow his pride, and in 1989 he went to work for his rival.

Put in polka dots as the "Common Man," he made the best of it, turning those yellow circles to gold in memorable, money-making programs with the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and "Macho Man" Randy Savage. It was the Dream without the raw edges, and like most of what McMahon did in that era, it seemed to work.

"Him and Vince butted heads over many things," Dusty's wife, Michelle Runnels, said. "They had different ideas, and they both had really strong personalities. But he had nothing but respect for Vince and what he accomplished. Vince did a lot for this business. He took it from a world of regional promotions to a huge conglomerate. Dusty had nothing but respect for that.

"It was making money for the boys, and for Dusty that meant everything was great."

After a few years working with McMahon, Dusty went back to the WWF's competition until it finally closed up shop. He tried and failed with his own wrestling promotion in the southeast, spent time on the independent circuit, working well into his 50s doing the only thing he'd ever known, putting food on the table the only way he knew how.

Dusty spent his final decade working for the man who had bested him. When the McMahons offered him a lifeline and an opportunity to work with developing talent with their NXT brand, Dusty didn't hesitate. At NXT, he continued to fight for his vision of wrestling. Working this time mostly with Vince's daughter, Stephanie, and her husband, Triple H, he turned his attention to the future of the business.

McMahon may call the shots backstage at WWE Raw, but the passion and spirit that fuels the dreams of many WWE performers was nurtured by NXT's old oak, who often invited them to sit under his learning tree. There is a generation of budding stars who came through the WWE Performance Center in Orlando who call themselves "Dusty's Kids."

His legacy lives through them—and through Cody and Dustin, the original Dusty kids.

"Dad would be really proud of everything his boys are doing, especially Cody," Dustin Rhodes said. "He not only left the other company to go out and do his own thing, but he's actually attacked it and is in a position right now to do some amazing things. And I know Dad would be really proud. I wish he was here to enjoy it with us, because it's a fun time.

"We miss him terribly. We don't like to harp on it a lot, but we do. But we work and we keep going and we keep doing what he taught us to do. That's 'Do the work' as Cody says and 'Keep stepping' like I say. That comes from Pops. That's what we do. That's what our family was raised to do and what we've been doing for so, so long. I think our name, our legacy, is in a good place right now and we are continuing his legacy. And we will keep the name relevant and alive for years to come."

The Scion

Cody has been many things in his 34 years—athlete, actor, husband and executive, to name a few. But before he was any of those, he was a son.

"We were like the Addams Family," Cody said with a laugh. "We lived in a neighborhood full of lawyers and business people, and we were this weird family. [Dad would] come to the pool in his trunks, like his actual 'DR' wrestling trunks and his 300 something pounds...on the diving board. A lot of my friends from the neighborhood, that was their first exposure to me. Like, That's your dad? That guy?"

There is power in names. In some ways they define us, defying us to live up to the expectations that come with them or giving us something to run away from. For Cody and Dustin, their last name opened doors but also came with a price. Dusty spent a lifetime at the top of a very competitive industry, cultivating a few close allies and a much longer list of enemies and fair-weather friends.

So when Cody told Dad one day on the way home from Waffle House that he wanted to give up on an acting career and join him in the wrestling business, his father sat in his enormous F-250 pickup truck and cried.

"He did not want either of the boys to go into the business because there's a hardship," Michelle said. "There are expectations of them. People think they have it easy because of their father when in reality their paths were not easy at all. Dusty had been on both sides of the business, and he'd had a lot to do with people's careers. He made a lot of decisions, and most made one person happy and another upset. There was resentment against him from some people for a long time. And he was afraid those resentments would get transferred to his sons."

Dusty's fears, perhaps, were prescient.

It's easy to dismiss the big gold belts, to scoff at an athletic accomplishment that's gifted before either wrestler hits the ring for a match, but the truth is championships matter in wrestling. There is power in being positioned as the top performer in your industry.

And Cody, despite checking all the boxes one would normally expect a contender to check in his decade in WWE, never won a world championship.

Not that he'll give away responsibility for that.

"There's this long-standing kind of rumor that Vince has it out for the Rhodes family," Cody said. "If he does, it's deep in there. It's not...it was never on the surface. It's deep in there.

"What happened to me at the end of my career in WWE is not WWE's fault at all. Totally mine. It really is. I wasn't ready for the role I thought I was ready for. If you want to be John Cena, you got to do the exact same amount of work he does. And that's a lot of work. I wasn't doing the work that I should have been doing."

The promotion, right or wrong, never saw Cody as a wrestler at that level. And as uncouth as it is to admit, he craved it. He wanted to trade in the goofy gimmick he was wrestling under, Stardust, and ascend the few remaining rungs to the top of the card. The recognition could validate everything—from his decision to walk away from Hollywood to donning the face paint as Stardust to being a team player and making the best of every embarrassing thing he was asked to do.

Maybe it was parental and not professional judgment. Either way, Dusty saw things differently. He saw Cody as a champion, a talent with endless potential to achieve greatness. But by June 11, 2015, it still hadn't happened. Dusty Rhodes died that day of septic shock after a long battle with his own body.

The dream he inspired, however, was too big to ever fully pass into the great beyond.

"I got a boost of bravery when my dad passed away because all I ever wanted to do was be world champion while he was still alive," Cody said. "That was my biggest fear in life: I wouldn't win it. And I didn't win it. It was such a silly fear, but it came true. He didn't get to see it. He never asked for it. He never was pressuring me on it. It was my own pressure.

"But after that, I thought, 'I have zero to be afraid of.'"

Death crystallizes things. Powerful doubts and desires that might otherwise linger in the subconscious rise to the surface and demand action. Cody knew he was unhappy. He knew why. He even knew exactly what his dad would say about it.

"The one thing Dusty really wanted for all four children is for them to be happy and to live up to what he thought their potential was in whatever their chosen path ended up being," Michelle said. "Cody wasn't happy in WWE. Dusty would have said, 'Son, you need to do what you need to do. You do what is right for you.'

"Dusty made a terribly hard choice when he left Florida. Eddie Graham had been his mentor and had been like a father and was very upset, but he had to leave because he wanted the opportunity to be involved in wrestling on a larger scale. He would have understood and seen what was going on with Cody. I don't think he would have been surprised at all."

First Cody went to agents like Arn Anderson, telling them that he needed a change, that he wanted to put the Stardust gimmick away forever. Eventually, he found his way to Vince's office. At every step, he received pushback. And so, he and his wife Brandi decided to walk away. She gave her notice first, and that's when the company realized he might actually be serious about leaving.

"Hunter [Triple H, Vince McMahon's son-in-law and heir apparent at WWE] took it very personally because he had done so much for my dad at NXT," Cody said. "There was one conversation where he said, 'I'm shocked that you feel this way after everything I've done for your family.' But I told him, 'I'm not my dad. I can't stay here out of loyalty to you for giving my dad a job in 2005.' I get it, and the little boy in me really appreciates what you did for my dad. But I'm not him. He's not here anymore. I've got to be me. ...

"I think Hunter, he's been in wrestling long enough that he knew, 'Oh, this is a real one. He's not asking for more money. He's not asking for a title shot. Nothing would matter at this point.' I let the burn get too bad before I said anything, if that makes any sense."

WWE made an effort to keep both Cody and Brandi. They floated the pair contracts large enough to give pause. But understanding what the future held in WWE, Cody and Brandi ventured into the unknown, preferring the uncertainty of precarious potential over a comfortable stagnation.

"They made an offer," Brandi said. "I said, 'Thank you so much. I really appreciate you wanting to keep me here. But it's just not in my heart. I'm not going to be able to do what I want to do here.' And he said, 'Well, this is what we're going to do. We're going to go ahead and pay you through the end of your contract. You'll see real quick that money is going to go fast.' They were trying to scare us. Thank God we didn't listen."

Less than a year after Dusty's death, his younger son had cut all ties with the only real wrestling promotion he'd ever know—the place where he'd grown into an adult, met his wife and made lifelong friendships. When Cody posted the news, along with a list of all the dream opponents he could now face on the independent scene, the wrestling internet exploded. He was ready.

"I'm a big organizer and planner," he said. "So I had been in [WWE wrestler] Kevin Owens' ear, like, 'Hey, what does the world look like? I've saved a chunk of my money and I bought a home and stuff, but I want to make sure I can keep it. What does it look like out there?'

"And Kevin was the one who said, 'I'll introduce you to The Young Bucks. They're the masters of having marketed themselves outside of the company.' Me and Brandi were totally fearless in that moment. It was crazy."

Becoming the Elite

Cody took Owens' advice and connected with The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, and through them Kenny Omega, who was building a reputation as the best wrestler in the world.

The Jackson brothers come from opposite circumstances as Cody—self-trained in their backyard on a trampoline and built, not with a famous name, but with a decade of grinding away at it until the audience couldn't help but embrace their passion and enthusiasm for wrestling.

"Cody likes to call us the extra-credit guys," Nick said. "It's really true that we had to do all the extra work to get popular and to get known."

The Jacksons convinced Cody to come to the promotion Ring of Honor for an extended run, scuttling his plans to be a nomad wandering the wrestling landscape like a character in the westerns his dad loved.

"It wasn't until after a few ROH shows that Matt asked me, 'Hey, do you want to ride with all the West Coast guys?' Which was him, Christopher Daniels, Frankie [Kazarian] and [Scorpio] Sky (the tag team trio SCU)," Cody said. "And in that minivan that they still ride in to this day was where all the fun wrestling stuff was happening."

The conversations were the cutting edge of wrestling, from "serious ROH stuff" to Being the Elite, the Young Bucks' viral YouTube show, which through hijinks like extended in-jokes and stunts like invading a WWE event has galvanized a fanbase looking for an alternative.

In the "Elite" stable of wrestlers, fans saw a reflection of themselves—like minds looking for an alternative to what WWE offered. And Cody saw a future.

"That's where I think they found my purpose in the group," he said. "My purpose in that group is as a promoter.

"We combine forces well. Kenny's a great bell-to-bell wrestler, Matt and Nick are tag team specialists, and they have this eye for the absurd and ludicrous. I bring my family's name value—not even my own: my family's name value—and my eye for the bigger picture."

Soon, events were getting so big and raucous that they had to hire security for simple meet-and-greets with the stable.

By September 2018, when Cody and the rest of what would become the AEW leadership team promoted the event All In, they didn't just sell out the Sears Centre Arena in suburban Chicago; they sold out the arena that holds more than 10,000 immediately. It was the proof of concept that solidified things, proved to Tony Khan that his instincts were correct, that wrestling fans were ready for something new.

"We had for two years straight a field test to see what worked with the audience and what didn't," Cody said. "And when we saw Buffalo, New York, was just as popular as San Jose, we were like, 'It's real. You know? It's not just Chicago. It's everywhere.' And we started to think about what might be possible."

At AEW's last big event, All Out in late August, Cody stood in the middle of the crowd and basked in their love, a sea of people who believed in him, who were on this journey with him and his partners, going wherever it led.

"We are in it together with our audience," Cody said. "And anyone who's like, 'Oh, let's see how they maintain their enthusiasm when you get to weekly TV.' Well, guys, how many times are we going to move the goalposts?

"The argument that, 'Oh, that's not a real audience; it's just a small group of hardcore fans.' That's a dead argument at this point. It's a very real audience. And there's a lack of crossover between our fans and WWE's, which is my favorite part. We had a lady say to us at the Houston Airport, 'I'm one of the returners. I was watching in the late '90s, and now I'm watching again.' And I thought, what a great way to describe some of these folks coming into this. Returners."

It was, as Cody dubbed it, a revolution. Others called it a cult. Either way, the idea Cody is anything but a superstar is downright foolish with the power of hindsight.

At WWE, at some point talent is slotted into a position. Changing that perspective, altering your destiny, becomes almost impossible. And Cody had been trapped in a maze with no exit. Perhaps that's why at AEW's first live event, Double or Nothing, Cody smashed a throne, symbolizing his freedom from tyranny.

"It's very romantic, very like Game of Thrones-style with these warring houses," Cody said. "When I left WWE in 2015, I didn't think, like, 'I'm picking up that sword, we're going to war.' It's a wild, wild series of events. There were so many combustible pieces that led to all of this. You throw them together, and suddenly we are in a situation where I'm standing in front of the Turner Mansion with Brandi, in exactly the same spot Dusty took the team picture with WCW. And we're taking another team picture with a billionaire NFL owner who's a mega wrestling fan, ready to launch another national wrestling promotion. ...

"Had Vince listened to me when I really wanted to make the transition back to being Cody Rhodes, we wouldn't be sitting here. It's that fragile."

Page sees it as the inevitability of a force that can't be restrained.

"I remember Cody telling me when he was in high school, 'Next year I'm going to win. I'm going to win the state championship,'" Page said. "And I said, 'Really? That's a bold statement, boy.' I said, 'You know what that's going to take?' He said, 'Absolutely. You got to put the work in.' He went undefeated.

"Look at his weight belt today. It says, 'Do the work.' You never know what's going to happen because this is a startup company. But this is f--king unprecedented. But I know that if it fails, it won't be because there's not a work ethic put behind it. Why do these people care so much? Because he does. When they say 'All In,' they're not talking about money, bro. That's them telling the fans, 'F--king A, we're going for it."

The Future

Back in Atlanta, when Schiavone finally makes it through traffic and arrives, he's wearing a brand-new blazer Cody just overnighted so he won't look the same in every video and is ready to film a segment for Road to AEW on TNT in front of a giant green screen.

The same harried team, led by Steve Yu, that makes these gorgeous promotional pieces has been tasked with creating a video opener for TNT. Deadlines for everything loom, and amid the excitement, there is also a very real sense that one major misstep could be the domino that topples a carefully balanced workload.

It's unique chaos in a way, but it's familiar in a startup.

Cody's consiglieri, Michael "QT" Cuellari Marshall, is there to offer support in all areas, with students from his wrestling school filling in wherever needed. One day, they might be building the throne that Cody smashed at Double or Nothing. The next, they're feeding his dogs during a busy day. There are opportunities here, to find hidden talents you didn't know you had and to step into the breach and be a hero. Marshall himself is a prime example of how quickly you can become indispensable in a company with more tasks than hands.

"We get to All In, and the guy we had hired to be one of our main producers in the 'go' position got drunk the night before, or he used something, and he got arrested in front of the hotel," Cody said. "He literally started up his car and passed out with it in reverse. He hit another car in the parking lot and got arrested."

Marshall, sitting nearby with a laptop, creating a mock advertisement someone will later clean up and present to a potential partner, continues the story.

"My student sang the national anthem at All In, and I drove her there. I was there to hang out and watch an amazing show. But when they needed someone, I stepped up."

Marshall had previously done commentary for Ring of Honor, which prepared him for the opportunity. "I used it as an internship to see how you did wrestling on TV," he said.

The team is filled with people with similar stories, people who breathe wrestling like it's oxygen.

"Now QT is an associate producer, and he's Tony [Khan]'s favorite," Cody said. "He sits in the go position for every match and tells the director and producer what shots to look for.

"We have a lot of will it into existence at AEW. Some of these guys don't have any specific reason for being here, but the only way you really learn about wrestling is to be around it a bunch."

The result is beauty in diversity.

You can see it in the promotion's YouTube channel, the Bucks' wild 'do-it-yourself' brand existing side-by-side with Cody's polished "Road to..." series that often features serious interviews like you might see ahead of a big boxing match.

And you can see it in the ring. While a WWE show can sometimes feel like a group of performers walking in lockstep for three long hours, AEW provides fans with multiple visions of what wrestling might be on a single show. Joey Janela is there for those who love hardcore stunts, the Bucks and Omega for high-flying precision. Cody represents a modern version of wrestling's yesterdays, the blood-and-guts style of his father presented in a package built for a 2019 audience.

"I think people want us to choose," Cody said. "They encourage us to choose. It's like, 'Well, what's it going to be?' It's all of it. Luchasaurus is on the same show with Arn Anderson. I mean, that's wrestling. I'd rather people have a lot of options."

And he has them.

"It's not just Cody. He's got Nick, he's got friggin' Matt, he's got Kenny, who is a force in that world," Page said. "And now having Jericho and [Jon] Moxley, that's a f--king strong six. And you don't need a strong 28. You just need a handful of people the crowd really cares about."

Cody will be the one headlining the next pay-per-view, against Jericho.

It's a decision that has opened him up to online criticism that he's already using his authority to treat AEW as a vanity promotion, the same kind of vitriol his dad faced in some circles when he made himself the top star in WCW.

"I tell Tony, I tell Matt, Nick and Kenny every day almost, I'm like, 'Man, we need a home run every segment.' Because there's a microscope on top of a microscope on what we're doing," Cody said. "When people are like, 'He's doing the same thing Dusty did.' I always want to say, 'Yeah, well Dusty was one of the most over guys on the show.'

"I could only hope to do what Dusty did."

AEW has four wrestlers in executive roles, both for their expertise and to keep each other honest. Khan, ultimately, will have the final say and settle any disputes. The key, Rhodes says, will be self-awareness and a keen understanding of the audience.

"All of us want to be in the main event. But if you're not, you're not. It's a nice checks and balances we have with Matt, Nick, Kenny and myself. There's three guys who are going to tell you, 'Hey, I don't think it's as big as you think.' Or, 'Let's move on this. MJF is becoming a megastar, let's go this direction.'

"An old-timer wrestler will tell you, 'Hey, we lead them,' and that is not entirely incorrect. We do lead them because we present the product to them. But if they drastically want something different, it is OK to let them lead us as well. And I don't think we're afraid to let them lead a little bit. If the other company had been more aware, even 25 percent more aware, we would not be in the position or even have this opportunity."

It all comes back, as it eventually always does in wrestling, to WWE. The question, a simple one, has remained the same since McMahon expanded nationally decades ago. Can big-time wrestling exist beyond WWE's ever-expanding universe?

For the first time since WCW folded, an organization will truly try to answer it—all because one man refused to be just a gear in the machine.

"They're going to make mistakes, and they'll learn from them. They already have, you know. It's a process," Page said. "They got the hardcore fans. Now it's how does that work to pull over to the casual viewer or the WWE fan who doesn't really know they exist. But there's a lot of wrestling fans who never flipped over after WCW died. They just stopped watching. That's the fan they need.

"This is a David vs. Goliath story. And if that can get brought across to the people well—David versus Goliath always works."

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

#cody rhodes #all elite wrestling #aew #posted on: 9.30.19 #article #bleacher report

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skateking185-blog · 6 years ago

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2. Swagtron T6 – Best Hoverboard for Off-Road Use

SWAGTRON has been among the leading companies to make some of the best hoverboards for a while now. Seriously, I have not seen the same level of impressive hoverboards from any other company so far. It is almost like a monopoly. And today I am looking at the SWAGTRON T6, one of the very few hoverboards that are made for different terrains.

The first look, and you will know that the company paid extra attention to detail; the hoverboard is made using quality material, and looks very rugged. After checking the specifications out, I figured out the reason behind such a rugged construction; the hoverboard supports up to 420 pounds. Other hoverboards often support maximum 220 pounds so 420 is nearly double of what I expected to see in the market.

This hoverboard comes with a built in carrying handle, allowing you to easily carry it anywher you want. Keep in mind that the hoverboard is somewhat on the heavier side as compared to a non-rugged hoverboard that are made for plain terrains. Users also get safety features such as LED lights, as well as non-slip pads that ensure that the hoverboard does not start slipping when not in use.

3. Gyroor Warrior – Best for Families

Gyroor sells several models of hoverboards. When I first started researching the brand, I liked the look of the F1. Their website claims its design is inspired by Formula 1 racing cars, and that really comes out. However, knowing my niece and nephew were going to visit, I wanted a hoverboard that could stand up to any punishment they might put it through. So, I opted for the more rugged Warrior, instead.

My first impression, when I opened the box, was that Tony Stark had designed this hoverboard from leftover parts of an Iron Man outfit. The Warrior shares some of the F1’s sleek, streamlined features, but is also chunkier in important places; it’s hard to describe, but it looks kind of like if the army designed a tank for aerodynamics, and then only gave it two wheels. At 30lbs, it isn’t the lightest board on this list, but it’s also not the flimsiest; made mostly of aluminum, it feels sturdy and solid.

Gyroor’s website says the Warrior can be used by anyone over seven-years-old but, in full disclosure, my niece is only six and was able to ride it without any problems J.

Gyroor Warrior Hoverboard Highlights

I live in an older part of the city, and tree roots have turned our sidewalks into something that M.C. Escher might have wanted to draw. So riding hoverboards to work can be, depending on what route I take, harrowing. I’m happy to say that, while I definitely cannot go full speed over a badly broken sidewalk, the Warrior felt safe to ride, and it was fun navigating the climbs and drops.

When I visited the park with my brother and his kids, the Warrior handled grass and roots without much problem. I can’t say I never fell off, but I was trying to push the Warrior’s limits, and there might have been some operator error. My niece and nephew loved riding off-road, daring each other to ride over terrain they thought would be challenging.

On smooth pavement, it has a top speed of almost 10 mph. While this isn’t the fastest hoverboard on my “top ten” list, it does make for a fun ride.

Gyroor’s website claims the Warrior is water resistant, but it’s also light enough to take on the bus, which I do whenever it rains. I’m also sure that it would fit in the trunk or back seat of a car (though I haven’t actually tried this, because I don’t own a car). J

It takes about two hours to charge, which is pretty fast; other boards on the list take five hours or more. When I rode it to work, I was able to plug it in knowing that it would have enough battery to get me home (even when I took a half-day). The charge speed was also nice in the evenings, in case I needed to go somewhere else. Going full speed, the battery lasts about an hour.

What I Liked

What I liked most about the Warrior, compared to some of the other brands on this list, was that it had features that attracted my siblings’ kids, while still being sturdy enough for me.

The Warrior’s Bluetooth connectivity and speakers were also a great feature. I live on a cul-de-sac, and when my brother visited we let his kids ride in the street (because my sidewalks are so bad). Their dad didn’t let them wear earbuds in the street, so they liked that they could still listen to music with relative safety. And, if I’m being honest, I sometimes listen to music when I ride to work, and crossing streets wouldn’t be safe with earbuds. With Bluetooth, I could also adjust the board’s maximum speed, or set it to ‘Kid Mode’ for my niece. The color of the LED lights can also be changed, which the kids loved (but that honestly didn’t do anything for me).

The weight and aluminum construction helps this feel sturdy underfoot. There are hoverboards marketed to kids, but this felt sturdier than some of those, which I liked (and again, being able to adjust the maximum speed was nice when kids wanted to ride it). Its tires are rubber, and nicely absorb of the smaller shocks and bumps of an uneven road.

I especially liked the charge time and the battery’s longevity. Not only was it convenient for me, but my niece and nephew were able to play with it without fighting over whose turn it was.

What I did NOT Like

The Bluetooth seems to disconnect at random times. This was fine when I had the time to turn the thing off and back on and reconnect, but sometimes I just wanted to get where I was going, and to have it disconnect from my phone could be annoying.

Also, when it gets low on charge, it kind of rocks back and forth, which kicks the rider off. When you know it’s going to happen it isn’t a big deal, but it was scarier to watch it happen to my brother’s kids when they weren’t expecting it.

And the instructions on how to operate it are somewhat minimal. While it isn’t hard to look it up online, or to watch how-to videos on YouTube, it would be disappointing to open up a new toy and then have to tell your kids, “Oh, hold on… I don’t know what this does. Let me look it up online.”

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massielandnetwork · 3 years ago

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Thriving in an Economic Bubble during Anarchy

6. The Christian Succession – Stress and Bubbles

What a week of highlights which provided clarity to a variety of questions. Give our Lord and Savior the credit for the great awakening that is happening as Christians stand firm so that Satan is being exposed. Hallelujah. Amen. Here are just a few examples:

1. Talk about Hot, Biden’s son has made paintings that are for sale for up to $500,000 each. Demonstrating their commitment to full disclosure, everyone was reassured when White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that “secrecy is transparency”. Really? Is that a quote from George Orwell’s ��Animal Farm”? Perhaps the video’s on Hunter’s laptop were his efforts at producing “art” not porn movies. I am surprised Pelosi and Schumer did not convert that “art’ into movies so Pelosi could provide designer ice cream. Perhaps Schumer does popcorn. Questions – Is the White House now an art gallery for Hunter Biden’s art? Does Hunter still pay his dad a 10% fee on all business deals? Since the sales are secret, is that why the prices are so high? Are Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian leaders the buyers? Does this smell good to you? It is consistent.

2. The inflation rate for June over a year ago was in excess of 5%, an increase from the rate in May. Can you hear that inflation train a’coming?

3. Some articles in the financial arena have discussed that major brokerage houses/ banks have a record total margin debt of over $68 Billion. Much of the expansion is because clients of those banks are borrowing against their stock portfolios sometimes at interest rates below 1% and using the money to buy houses, cars, trips, etc. The good times will roll until the stock market bubble bursts, then comes the pain and agony along with increased downward momentum in the stock market as margin calls occur.

4. It was reported that David Garrow, an award-winning Pulitzer Prize winning historian in the 2018 paperback version of his Obama biography, "Rising Star," wrote that Obama had written that he mentally made love to men daily. That answers a lot of questions but it also makes me wonder how distracted was Obama when he was meeting with male world leaders? Are the rumors true that Michelle is actually Michael?

5. One of the new media reported that on page 9 of an Executive Order signed by Biden in January titled “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” a goal is stated to “conserve” 30 percent of land in the United States by 2030 to combat the “climate crisis.” All of the Federal agencies are to periodically report how they are working to met that goal and their progress. What happened to private property rights? Demented Marxists, sorry I forgot for a moment.

6. 177 days into the DM’s Coup, the Vote Fraud pot is beginning to boil. VoterGA reported significant vote fraud in Fulton County, the home of the suitcase ballots. There were more reports of confirmed vote fraud in Michigan and demands for audits. Trump released a letter from a former U. S. Attorney who said he was ordered by Attorney General Barr NOT to pursue voter fraud in the November 2020 election. Keep watching the Arizona audit. Pray for the patriots in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, …for Patriots across the USA.

7. Did you see the video of the young female Cuban journalist that was arrested by state security in the middle of her broadcast? Heart rending. All those young folks want is freedom and the DM’s in DC do not care. I care… a lot. Join me in praying for them.

8. More alarms were raised last week about the electricity crisis and water crisis in California. Brownouts, rolling black outs, no water because of environmental regulations. Virginia needs adults in government because we are headed toward the same disaster.

As America exits the Wuhan Pandemic, consumer product companies have identified that higher stress is present in their consumers and are targeting that condition with products. Pepsi and Coke have designed new beverages and Lincoln has designed their vehicle interiors to reduce consumer stress. Perhaps some of the stress exists because there are two galaxies in the USA that seemingly must collide in the future. Our society is divided in a manner I have never witnessed before with a toxic mix of:

a. One political party demanding massive cultural changes including but not limited to having our schools and other institutions teach racial hatred while polls show a majority of both political parties believe the recent election was full of fraud and thus “stolen”.

b. Meanwhile the general economy while recovering from the pandemic shutdown appears to be headed for an economic cliff with bubbles being created and bursting like July 4 fireworks combined with high inflation, higher energy costs (our energy independence destroyed, OPEC is in control again, and gas is forecast to be $4 per gallon by the end of this year), and Biden’s proposed higher taxes.

In my career of 49 years, I have lived through recessions caused by:

1. Higher energy prices (Arab Oil Embargo of 1974, the beginning of OPEC).

2. Higher interest rates 1975 and in 1979 – 1982.

3. Massive bank failures (1986 – 1990 the end of the Savings and Loan industry).

4. Stock market crash (2001 when dotcoms became dot bombs because the Fed raised interest rates to combat “irrational behavior”).

5. The home mortgage banking crisis 2007-2010.

But I have never been through a recession where the toxic brew included a combination of three negative forces (higher energy costs, higher interest rates, and higher taxes). The non-infrastructure Infrastructure Deal will only increase inflation and bubbles will continue to occur and burst. Get ready for a brutal reset of the economy in 2022.

Timberland owners have been upset they did not get invited to the party of the lumber price bubble. Lumber prices more than doubled as major home builders and retailer bought up that “scarce” resource while stumpage prices in Virginia remained depressed compared to the rest of the South. In Virginia sawtimber and chip & saw were only $1 different per ton on the stump. Now that the lumber bubble has burst, those home builders and retailers need to work through their inventory of expensive lumber before retail prices will reflect the reduction in cost.

If you follow this blog, you know we forecasted in February that higher mortgage rates in January meant the residential market had peaked. Recently we have had some homebuilders comment that each month for the last three months their pace of home sales has slowed. That data confirms that January – February was the peak in the residential market. Grant Massie land market indices indicate the land market typically peaks about one year after the residential market, first quarter of 2022.

A great piece of land remains The Best investment long term. Capitalism builds wealth, Marxism/Socialism consumes it in self destruction. Pray for a return to honest and audited elections in the USA. God is in control. Men make plans, but God ALWAYS wins.

The wild card is when the above mentioned two galaxies collide. At that point we will be in uncharted economic territory. Fortunately, men make plans, but God is in control.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”

(Romans 12:12) New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press)

Stay healthy,

Ned

July 14, 2021

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sigmastolen · 7 years ago

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you guys, oh my god, i’m dying --

so this apparel company my mother bought something from earlier this year must have sold her information, because for the last few months she’s been getting terrible mail-order clothing catalogues, which i naturally have taken great delight in leafing through and criticizing roundly. one was full of sad beige clothing, but most seem to be marketed toward Quirky Middle Aged Small Town Ladies, or at least the mental image i have from the television of such ladies. you know, paisley burnout velvet tunics and corduroy pants with ruffles and knee-length patchwork coats and chunky jewelry, kind of tacky and too busy but pretty tame, maybe with perfume samples or eyebrow thickeners or root touch-up products sprinkled in.

today’s catalogue was different. it was definitely the tackiest yet, but with a clear New-Age/Witchy-Gothy slant, including lace victorian ankle boots, embarrassing steampunk accessories, crushed velvet gowns, hooded cloaks, ~healing~ jewelry, and mediocre fantasy art prints. (full disclosure: i actually liked some of the tailored jackets and then was dismayed at myself.) but the best part is, mum and dad and i were sitting on the couch after dinner and dad was watching the news and mum and i were paging through the catalogue because it was a train wreck and we couldn’t look away

when suddenly in the middle of all these flowy tops and granny heels and floor-length skirts and top-hat fascinators with plastic gears glued on

was a two-page spread

of vibrators

so many vibrators

!!!

i fell of the couch laughing. my mom, scandalized, shut the catalog in embarrassment, but then she kept opening it again to gawk, three or four times until i took it away to look at the rest of the tacky witchy clothes

“i have to show coworker bestie!” she exclaimed, then, “oh god i can’t show her, i can never tell a soul, no one must ever know, how do i tell them never to mail me another catalogue again” (to paraphrase)

y’all, i’m still laughing, hours later.

#vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas #tacky clothing catalogues for shut-ins

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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How Under Armour Lost Its Edge

In the summer of 2018, two top Under Armour executives traveled to the West Coast on a critical mission. Kevin Plank, the sports apparel company’s founder and chief executive, and Patrik Frisk, its president and chief operating officer, needed to persuade Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors star and the company’s highest-profile endorser, not to leave the brand.The two sides had grown increasingly frustrated with the relationship, said two former Under Armour executives familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the previously undisclosed meeting. In 2017, Mr. Curry took public exception to a comment by Mr. Plank calling President Trump “a real asset” to the country, prompting the executive to take out a full-page newspaper ad to explain what he said about Mr. Trump “did not accurately reflect my intent.”But the relationship between the two remained tense. Mr. Plank was unhappy that Mr. Curry, whose endorsement deal pays him millions of dollars a year, would rarely wear Under Armour clothing to N.B.A. games. Mr. Curry was upset that sales of the signature Curry 3 shoe had been weak.At the meeting, participants found a solution that would showcase just how much Mr. Curry meant to the company. Mr. Plank and Mr. Frisk agreed to build a separate business around him, one reminiscent of what Nike had done for Michael Jordan two decades before. The company brought on the former executive who had overseen the creation of the Jordan brand at Nike to run the Curry brand and promised Mr. Curry much more involvement in the development of his shoes. Mr. Curry decided to remain, and a crisis was averted.Jeff Austin, Mr. Curry’s agent, declined to comment when asked about the meeting. A spokeswoman for Under Armour, when asked about the events, said Mr. Curry had been a “fantastic partner” over the past seven years and that the company was “excited about our future partnership plans.”In its promise and its turmoil, Under Armour’s relationship with Mr. Curry encapsulates the company’s broader struggles in recent years, and represents a critical piece of its comeback hopes.Once heralded as the next Nike, Under Armour has faltered, hurt by slumping sales and unflattering revelations about its corporate culture. It is grasping for a hold in the fiercely competitive sports apparel market even as it undergoes the biggest management shift in its history. Investors, analysts, and competitors are wondering if Under Armour can successfully redefine itself and once again win over consumers, or whether the company’s best days are behind it.Not long ago, Under Armour was a darling of investors. But it has since faced tough scrutiny, resulting in lawsuits from shareholders, who accuse the company of misleading investors, and media coverage around real estate deals involving the company and Mr. Plank’s private holdings. Questions have also arisen about a culture that allowed strip club visits to be expensed on corporate credit cards and, more recently, a disclosure by The Wall Street Journal that federal authorities are conducting investigations into accounting practices.It is a far cry from 2015, when Under Armour, founded in 1996 as a maker of high-tech athletic gear, had overtaken Adidas to become the second-largest sports apparel company in the United States by sales, behind only Nike. It posted 26 consecutive quarters of 20 percent or greater year-over-year revenue growth, and its stock more than doubled in two years’ time.Athletes it sponsored were among the biggest names in the N.B.A. (Mr. Curry), the N.F.L. (Tom Brady), major league baseball (Bryce Harper) and golf (Jordan Spieth). Under Armour signed U.C.L.A. to a sponsorship agreement worth $280 million, the largest ever for a university and a challenge to Adidas and Nike’s dominance of college athletics. The ballerina Misty Copeland gave the company a presence in the fine arts. It spent a total of about $700 million acquiring apps like MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal, with visions of creating a mobile digital health and fitness community. Now, revenue growth has slumped, increasing less than 1 percent in the first nine months of last year. The company’s stock price has collapsed to around $21 a share from a high of $51 in 2015. Worse, the brand finds itself out of step with consumer taste.“The fashion cycle moved away from them. They stayed true to their muse, performance footwear and apparel,” said Matt Powell, an analyst with the NPD Group. “But that’s just not where the business is. Right now, it’s all about fashion and athleisure.”There is no one cause of Under Armour’s struggles. Some factors, like the bankruptcies of the retail giants Sports Authority and Sport Chalet in 2016, were out of the company’s control.But interviews with several current and former Under Armour employees as well as competitors, advisers to athletes, and financial analysts also point to a company that tried to do too much too fast. It expanded into sports in which it had little expertise and failed to articulate a strategy for its expensive tech acquisitions. It eschewed the athleisure trend, which has buoyed sales at Nike and Adidas, and struggled to translate its brand to an international audience.And when Mr. Plank hired executives from Nike, Adidas and elsewhere to help expand or fix crucial businesses, many said they were viewed by Under Armour employees with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. It was a disconnect that played out in how Mr. Curry’s shoes were made and marketed.“Loyalty is good, but it can also create blind spots,” said Aaron Miller, who worked as a senior director of footwear at Under Armour from 2013 to 2015, after 18 years at Nike. Mr. Plank “was so loyal to the guys who were there before that when the Nike guys came in, suddenly, they were insiders and we were outsiders.”This month, Mr. Plank, 47, officially stepped down as chief executive and was replaced by Mr. Frisk, 57. Mr. Plank now holds the titles of executive chairman and brand chief, and Mr. Frisk reports directly to him.Under Armour declined to make any executives available to comment for this article. In a statement, a spokeswoman said the company was proud of the global brand that it continued to build, adding, “Like the athletes we serve, we are acutely aware of our strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities that are inherent every time we train, compete and recover.”From its early days, Under Armour made its mark as a tech-focused sports apparel company. It didn’t just make clothes for athletes; it made clothes that aimed to improve their performance. Beginning with its first product, a T-shirt that wicked away sweat, Under Armour redefined the category, from its HeatGear and ColdGear fabrics in the late 1990s to, more recently, sleepwear intended to help athletes recover from a big game.With Under Armour’s stock soaring in the fall of 2015, Mr. Plank and his top lieutenants believed nothing could stop the company’s rise. But others were less sanguine, concerned the company’s go-go-growth culture and its lack of discipline around product planning and expenses would result in a reckoning.One internal debate came that same year, over how many pairs of Curry 2 shoes to manufacture.The first Curry shoe had sold out immediately, and Mr. Miller wanted to double the number of Curry 2 shoes produced. That quantity, he believed, would also sell out, increasing demand for the next model, the Curry 3. But top executives, he recalled, requested three times the number of shoes he recommended, even as he argued that could cause a glut.The executives won, and Curry 2 shoes eventually flooded the market, winding up on sale racks. It didn’t help that one all-white low-top version was ruthlessly mocked as a “dad” shoe. The large inventory combined with infighting over and micromanaging of the shoe’s design set the stage for the lackluster sales of the Curry 3 in 2016, Mr. Miller said. On a 2017 earnings call, Mr. Plank blamed a “sluggish signature market” for “softer than expected” sales of the shoe.“It’s crazy. Why recruit talented, proven people and then not listen to them?” said Mr. Miller, who left the company a few months later.A spokeswoman for Under Armour declined to comment on the debate around the Curry 2.Three former executives said that decisions around products were often driven by instinct, rather than consumer analysis of the market.Two pointed to the DJ, a slip-on shoe for women that they said sold poorly. Yet, the former executives said, the DJ could not be killed because it was named for Mr. Plank’s wife, Desiree Jacqueline Guerzon, who goes by D.J., and she really liked the shoe.Under Armour declined to respond to questions about the shoe.Under Armour’s rush to compete for college endorsement contracts resulted in other headaches. Under the terms of the contracts, it supplied jerseys, cleats and sneakers for football and basketball teams. But it also quickly had to manufacture apparel and shoes for other sports, like running and volleyball, in which it had much less expertise.A former executive said some runners at Under Armour-sponsored colleges refused to train in the company’s shoes because they worried they might get hurt. Instead they took them to sporting goods stores and tried to exchange them for shoes from other companies.A spokeswoman for Under Armour declined to comment on its college endorsement deals.Over the last two years, Mr. Frisk, the new chief, has been given credit for introducing more controls around inventory levels as well as increased oversight on expenses and product planning. Those moves have already improved Under Armour’s profit margins.The challenge now is figuring out how to increase revenue and recapture the magic that propelled Under Armour’s meteoric rise. Some Wall Street analysts are skeptical of an approach that focuses too much on products marketed as performance-enhancing, especially for a public that wears basketball shoes or track pants to the grocery store or the movies.Still, Under Armour and Mr. Plank are undaunted in their strategy. This month, the company released its latest advertising campaign, “The Only Way Is Through,” featuring the swimmer Michael Phelps, D.K. Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks, and other Under Armour-sponsored athletes sweating and gasping through strenuous workouts.“The world did not need another competent apparel or footwear manufacturer,” Mr. Plank recently told attendees at the National Retail Federation conference in New York. “What the customer needs is a dream.” Read the full article

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kindlecomparedinfo · 6 years ago

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Juul Labs hires former Apple employee to lead the fight against counterfeits

Juul Labs, the e-cig company under fire for its product’s popularity with young people, has brought on a new VP of Intellectual Property Protection with Adrian Punderson, formerly of PwC and Apple.

Punderson’s job is all about working alongside government agencies, as well as Juul Labs Intellectual Property VP Wayne Sobon, to combat the sale of counterfeit and infringing products. These can range from copycat vapes and pods that are actually marketed as Juul products all the way to products that are designed specifically to be Juul compatible without using the trademark.

These counterfeit and infringing products pose a serious threat to the company. Of course, no business wants its products infringed or its marketshare stolen.

With Juul, however, it’s far more complicated. Juul Labs is currently under heavy FDA scrutiny over the popularity of its products with minors.

“As you start to enforce generally on the sale of these types of products to youth, oftentimes they are going to look for another seller or distribution point of this product,” said Punderson. “The challenge is that oftentimes they’re going to platforms or places for this and you have no idea what the origin of the product is. A lot of it is counterfeit. So they get something they believe is Juul only to find out they have a counterfeit device or pod.”

He went on to say that, for Juul, a top priority is identifying counterfeit sellers and quickly putting that information into the hands of law enforcement. To the extent that they can’t take action, said Punderson, Juul will take civil action.

Part of the concern is that there is zero transparency into what ingredients are being used in infringing products, whereas Juul’s recipe at least meets the legal requirements for disclosure as it seeks full FDA approval.

Juul doesn’t currently have data around the scale of infringing products on the market, but counterfeit Juul products may inaccurately increase sales figures, intensifying scrutiny from the FDA.

Juul has already taken legal action against many infringing manufacturers and distributors, but Punderson aims to take Juul’s efforts against infringing products to a new level.

He sees the issue as threefold: Juul Labs must work to stop these products from being manufactured in the first place, ensure they aren’t allowed across borders into the country, and take action against retailers who sell infringing products and remove them from the market.

“This isn’t a problem where there is only a production problem but there isn’t really a distribution or consumption problem,” said Punderson. “We don’t have the luxury of looking at the problem singly-faceted. From a global perspective, we want to stop the production and distribution of infringing products around the world, and we’ll work closely with government agencies attempting to stop illicit distribution of goods.”

Punderson previously served as Managing Director of IP Protection at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, VP of Global Anti-Counterfeiting/Anti-Diversion at Oakley, and worked at Apple on the Intellectual Property Enforcement team.

Juul is currently viewed by many as a Facebook-ified, 2018 version of Marlboro. Notably, Juul Labs recently closed a $12.8 billion investment from Altria Group, the makers of Marlboro cigarettes. When asked why he chose to work for Juul, Punderson said his initial reaction was no. But that after he did some research around the mission of the company, and thought of his own personal experience losing his father to emphysema, he came around quickly.

“I would do anything to get two or three more years with my dad, who was a lifelong smoker,” said Punderson. “[…] We’re trying to do good things here, move people away from tobacco and give them an alternative. To me, it’s a valuable, noble cause that’s worth being involved in and I’m proud to be here.”

It remains to be seen just how big of an issue infringing products are for Juul and other above-board e-cig makers, but Juul is ramping up its efforts to combat copycats from getting into the hands of consumers.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/01/juul-labs-hires-former-apple-employee-to-lead-the-fight-against-counterfeits/ via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/

#RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395

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un-enfant-immature · 6 years ago

Text

Juul Labs hires former Apple employee to lead the fight against counterfeits

Juul Labs, the e-cig company under fire for its product’s popularity with young people, has brought on a new VP of Intellectual Property Protection with Adrian Punderson, formerly of PwC and Apple.

Punderson’s job is all about working alongside government agencies, retailers, etc. to combat the sale of counterfeit and infringing products. These can range from copycat vapes and pods that are actually marketed as Juul products all the way to products that are designed specifically to be Juul compatible without using the trademark.

These counterfeit and infringing products pose a serious threat to the company. Of course, no business wants its products infringed or its marketshare stolen.

With Juul, however, it’s far more complicated. Juul Labs is currently under heavy FDA scrutiny over the popularity of its products with minors.

Juul doesn’t currently have data around the scale of infringing products on the market, but counterfeit Juul products may inaccurately increase sales figures, intensifying scrutiny from the FDA.

Juul has already taken legal action against many infringing manufacturers and distributors, but Punderson aims to take Juul’s efforts against infringing products to a new level.

#TechCrunch

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bentonpena · 4 years ago

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Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum

Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum https://bit.ly/33jl0u2

DeFi Dad is a DeFi super user sharing his money experiments and tutorials on Twitter and YouTube. He is an organizing member of the Ethereal Summit and Sessions, host of The Ethereal Podcast and a weekly contributor to The Defiant and Bankless.

Ethereum has always been difficult to explain. Even the founders of Ethereum have sometimes struggled to communicate the project’s transformative potential in layperson’s terms. Metaphors such as “world computer” and “gas” tried to translate Ethereum to the world, but looking back it’s clear how little we understood about the platform’s true capabilities.

By 2017, big promises were being made that Ethereum would “bank the unbanked.” But that promise seemed to go largely unfulfilled in the wake of the initial coin offering (ICO) craze. Nevertheless, the oft-repeated slogan represented the first attempt to describe Ethereum’s potential to transform personal finance.

While the ICO mania showed Ethereum’s potential as a distributive technology that could emulate, improve upon and democratize the initial stock offering, what was missing then was a simple personal financial use case that could be demonstrated to a friend, such as a mobile app. In those early days, there were many white papers, promises and signs of progress by a few teams (some of which have led to the top DeFi projects such as ChainLink, Kyber, and Set), but most of the benefits had yet to be delivered.

Meanwhile, there were lots of inspiring speakers from the Ethereum community who drew us into believing Ethereum would change the world. It just required a patient newcomer willing to wade through new ideas, intricate foreign concepts and a firehose of new information daily. Nothing was a simple elevator pitch.

When I saw Joe Lubin speak at Ethereal SF 2017, there was an inspiring message to take home. A lot of detail flew over my head at the time, but if you listened carefully it was impossible to not buy the idea that Ethereum could change the world for the better.

It’s worth noting that in 2017, ConsenSys and other early adopters and builders were also educating institutional players and enterprise software companies on how they could benefit from many blockchain use cases on Ethereum. Partnerships with Microsoft, IBM and Hyperledger helped cement Ethereum’s credibility in the enterprise blockchain race.

Fast forward to July 2018, when I started full-time work in Ethereum. We were all recovering from the hangover of 2017, thinking the bull run might return sooner before watching markets unravel and get even bloodier. We were emerging from an era without a coherent elevator pitch to be easily understood, including language that sounded like it had come from a “Big Bang Theory” script.

I recognized that Ethereum had to find any small group of fanatical users. For better or worse, I began drawing on my experience in SaaS, which taught me that startups need loyal users who find so much utility in an application that, if it were taken away, they wouldn’t have an alternative.

DeFi days

By spring 2019, I am working full time on the Ethereal Summit, a series of events celebrating the founders and builders of the decentralized web on Ethereum. It was around then that Ethereum’s narrative began to change. I heard about Compound, where you can lend and borrow – similar to MakerDAO, but with better loan-to-value (LTV) ratios.

I was astonished – $50 MILLION in an app built on Ethereum! It was exhilarating to learn a second finance application had been built, launched and had been running on Ethereum for more than six months.

All this activity came to be known as decentralized finance, or DeFi. The term was coined in 2018 by members of the 0x team, but the industry was just getting going. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I began researching every project we were hosting at Ethereal – PoolTogether, Kyber Argent and Zerion. And I did something even more radical: I began testing and using the damn products!

I needed to see my investment make money to realize the power of these DeFi applications. I started lending dai on Compound for over 10% APY and it just clicked. I’m lending dai and others borrow that money, but there’s no bank to collect the middleman fees. So, in turn, I earn better lending interest and borrowers pay smaller fees, and without know your customer (KYC) or anyone’s permission.

What stood in the way of DeFi mass adoption was better storytelling and more visual demonstration of how DeFi can work for anyone

It had long been a talking point in crypto the user experience (UX) had to improve for Ethereum to see adoption, but I found those same people espousing such criticisms often had zero experience with DeFi applications. It seemed like a lie that had stuck around long enough to become a truth, even though I was finding some DeFi UX better than my experience with legacy banking.

For me, what stood in the way of DeFi mass adoption was better storytelling and more visual demonstration of how DeFi can work for anyone. EthHub.io and Cami Russo’s The Defiant were already doing lots of legwork in this space but there was clearly more to build upon.

In late 2019, the DeFi community was still small compared to today, only a few thousand or possibly even a few hundred users, but it felt like we were on a bustling rocket ship of excitement. We rallied around this term DeFi, the simplest term to describe any peer-to-peer finance app built on Ethereum, requiring a Web 3 wallet like MetaMask, that doesn’t need KYC and has no single point of failure. If ETH is money, DeFi is your bank.

What started as a concept is now an economy of interlinked applications with more than $4 billion in value invested. But it’s more than just money. DeFi has changed the way people think about Ethereum itself and given rise to new narratives and memes.

A meme is born

Shortly after this spark was really gaining momentum in the fall 2019, DeFi users naturally found a second totem to rally around. That was the concept of Total Value Locked (TLV), coined by the team at DeFi Pulse.

TVL refers to the sum of all value deposited into a DeFi app’s smart contracts, whether that’s measured in U.S. dollars (USD) or in ETH. TVL reflected a new, un-gameable metric for adoption. It was a way to compare how much trust DeFi users put into an application. It has its flaws, but those flaws are no worse than reducing Bitcoin to its price.

DeFi also helped solidify the “ETH is money” meme. As co-host of the Bankless Podcast David Hoffman said, ETH is a triple-point asset, because it acts as a store-of-value, a capital asset, and a consumable asset. “ETH is Money” is an intentional pivot from “ETH is gas,” and updates the world on how ETH is actually used on Ethereum.

Plain and simple: ETH is money. It always has been money and to label it otherwise was a product marketing mistake in the early days of Ethereum.

Yield farming is the latest viral meme in Ethereum. DeFi is a larger all-encompassing category of p2p, self-custody, KYC-less, finance apps built on Ethereum, but yield farming describes a popular incentives program where you often provide liquidity to a DeFi application in exchange for a combination of rewards.

As Dan Elitzer of IDEO CoLab Ventures put it, yield farming is like aquaponics because it creates a symbiotic relationship between DeFi protocols, meaning DeFi participants can earn three or more forms of yield such as interest, market-making fees and pooled rewards such as a governance token like BAL or COMP. Because of the most composable incentive designs in DeFi, yield farming (aka “liquidity mining”) is like passive income on steroids, with programs delivering anywhere from 10-200% daily APY on average.

Universal appeal

Five years ago, you could argue Ethereum was attempting to do too much. Even two to three years ago, that was still a valid hypothesis, with stagnant adoption.

Today, the bold experiment of Ethereum is working. Alongside the $4 billion in assets deposited into DeFi, we’ve seen a 227% year-on-year increase in ETH locked in DeFi, and a 20X increase in tokenized BTC on Ethereum (equivalent to ~$220 million) since January 1.

What was a drawback – doing “too much” – is now a strength and a reason why Ethereum’s daily transaction volume and daily network fees have eclipsed Bitcoin’s. Although Ethereum is less than half Bitcoin’s age, it has accomplished more in the last five years, building the most advanced permissionless p2p finance system in the world while Bitcoin has continued to champion the narrower digital gold meme.

It’s getting easier every day to point to DeFi apps that clearly demonstrate value and utility you cannot find elsewhere. If you’ve managed to ignore these developments, now is as good a time as ever to catch yourself up. The story of DeFi and Ethereum is just getting started.

Disclosure

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Trading via CoinDesk https://bit.ly/35KxIA1 August 1, 2020 at 09:06AM

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brentrogers · 4 years ago

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Podcast: Motherhood and The Dragon of Self-Doubt

Are you a mom struggling with loads of self-doubt? Just know you’re not alone. Today’s guest, Katherine Wintsch, author and researcher of modern motherhood, discusses the “dragon of self-doubt” that many moms grapple with. This doubt can manifest as comparing ourselves to other moms, imagining a doomsday future or just sheer exhaustion.

Do you struggle to feel “good enough” as a parent or a partner? Do you feel desperate to get that next job promotion? Do you call yourself “fat” or a host of other ugly names? Tune in for real strategies to overcome these self-doubt dragons.

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Guest information for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Podcast Episode

KATHERINE WINTSCH is an internationally recognized expert on the topic of modern motherhood and author of SLAY LIKE A MOTHER: How to Destroy What’s Holding Your Back So You Can Live the Life You Want. The majority of her expertise comes from studying the passion and pain points of mothers around the world—the rest is accumulated from a little trial and a whole lot of error while raising her own two children with her husband in Richmond, Virginia.

As the founder and CEO of The Mom Complex, Katherine and her team help develop innovative new products, services, and marketing strategies for the world’s largest mom-focused brands, including Walmart, Babyganics, Pinterest, Kimberly Clark, and the Discovery Network.

Katherine’s sought-after research and expertise have been featured by Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company, and she regularly writes about the topic of motherhood on her popular blog, In All Honesty, and for Working Mother magazine.

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Psych Central Podcast, where guest experts in the field of psychology and mental health share thought-provoking information using plain, everyday language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Welcome to this week’s episode of The Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today, we have Katherine Wintsch, who is an internationally recognized expert on the topic of modern motherhood. The majority of her expertise comes from studying the passion and pain points of mothers around the world. The rest is accumulated from a little trial and a whole lot of error while raising her own two children with her husband in Richmond, Virginia. Katherine, welcome to the show.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: Well, I am so excited to discuss motherhood with you. Full disclosure for longtime listeners of the show, they know that I have zero children, so I’m definitely coming from a point way far away. Not only do I not understand motherhood, I don’t understand parenthood. So I’m very excited to learn a lot from you. Because one of the things that the Internet has taught me is that mothers are expected to be perfect 100 percent of the time.

Katherine Wintsch: Yes. That’s why we’re so exhausted. Yes. You know, Instagram certainly doesn’t help and Facebook or Fakebook, as so many mothers now call it. Yeah, there’s a lot of pressure to have all the answers, even in the sayings of moms know best. And truth is that we don’t always know best. We don’t always have the answers. And that can be hard for a lot of men, and women, and to be so new at something and not be slaying it.

Gabe Howard: When I was but a new podcaster, I always tried to tie everything together for parenthood. You know, I didn’t want to do a show on motherhood or fatherhood. I wanted to do a show on parenthood. And what changed my mind is the little boy a few years ago who fell into the gorilla enclosure because mom, dad, sibling and little boy were all standing next to each other. The little boy climbed over the fence, landed inside the gorilla enclosure and the Internet, just went nuts attacking mom, not dad, just mom. And I thought that the father standing right there, like, why is nobody attacking the father? Why is nobody attacking both of them together? It was she is a horrible mother. I would never let that. It was just I was like, oh, my God, there are so women just apparently have it really, really bad when it comes to the expectations that they have for parenting. And when I read your profile and your bio and I saw your book Slay Like a Mother, I thought, OK. Can you talk a little bit about why you wrote Slay Like a Mother?

Katherine Wintsch: I wrote Slay Like a Mother because, unfortunately for 20 years of my life, from age fifteen to thirty five, I lived with what I refer to as a dragon of self-doubt. And that was this ferocious beast that was in my mind and took up a lot of energy in my soul. And it chewed up everything I did wrong. Nothing I did was right, both in and around motherhood, but not exclusively in that area of my life. And it was an exhausting way to live. I never felt good enough, thin enough, tough enough, wife enough, mom enough. All the things. Despite having a very successful career and a lot of accomplishments. And after a lot of therapy and a lot of self-help work, I learned to slay that dragon of self-doubt. And I’ve come out victorious on the other side. And now I want to help women and mothers around the world do the same thing.

Gabe Howard: What exactly is the dragon of self-doubt?

Katherine Wintsch: The dragon of self doubt is the warped belief that you’re not good enough, and technically it’s kind of your greatest worries. Gone Wild. And those worries of failing, of falling short, of being left out, when those are left unsupervised, they create this exaggerated and distorted view of reality. And people so many people, women in particular, live with this dragon of self-doubt every day and don’t even know that it’s there

Gabe Howard: I love that you call it a dragon, because dragons aren’t real, they don’t exist, but we all understand what a dragon is and well, frankly, why to be afraid of them. Is that kind of the analogy that you’re drawing? Everybody is afraid of the fire breathing dragon, even though the fire breathing dragon isn’t real.

Katherine Wintsch: Yes, that’s exactly it. And also that it’s ferocious and it’s aggressive and when you live with self-doubt, it’s just a lot of heat in your face all day, every day. But, you know, I’m living proof that dragons can be slayed and that once you finally slay it, to your point, you realize that it was never real. It was always a figment of my imagination. And I was born enough. And I am enough and I’ve always been enough. But for two decades, because this beast was kind of staring me down every day, I couldn’t see my own self worth. I couldn’t appreciate it.

Gabe Howard: And how was this dragon of self-doubt born?

Katherine Wintsch: I’m a researcher by trade and I have studied this all over the world and according to my research, seventy five percent of the time a woman’s self doubt is born during or before adolescence. So it begins very early on. It’s not as though becoming a mother all the sudden makes you doubt yourself. That’s not the way it works. It’s very likely that something happened in your teenage years that cut you hard, hurt you deep and really gave your self-esteem a kick in the stomach. It can be brought on from horrific events like abuse and neglect, but it also can be brought on by very small slights. Someone made fun of you when you were in third grade because you pronounced a word wrong or in high school, you know, your first love broke up with you. But most people, when I talk about that, can recall pretty quickly, at least the time period in their life when they started to feel less than.

Gabe Howard: So here they are. They’re living with the dragon of self-doubt. What does that feel like? Or maybe more specifically, what did it feel like for you?

Katherine Wintsch: It was unconscious. I didn’t even know that it was a thing in my life. And what it felt like was exhaustion. It felt like an endless battle of fighting for my self esteem and coming up short every time. And, you know, in my career, I would become a vice president and I was all excited for eight days. And then nine days later, it was like, OK, Katherine, what’s next? You know, what’s it going to take to become a senior vice president and executive vice president? And so when you live with this dragon, you can only really be proud of yourself and your accomplishments for a very short period of time because it’s very externally driven. And so you really feel like your soul is tired. And mothers, we often talk about how tired we are. But I always say it’s not the physical demands of motherhood that wear you down. It’s the warped belief that you’re not good enough. That just exhausts your soul. So it was a fatigue filled existence I would tell you.

Gabe Howard: Now, if I understand correctly, self-doubt doesn’t discriminate.

Katherine Wintsch: Yes, everybody always tries to pit mothers against each other, even the example that you shared earlier about the child at the zoo and everybody attacking the mom for being a terrible human being. Mothers are often pitted against each other. Working versus stay at home. Tiger versus attachment mom. But my research shows that all moms experience the same frequency and intensity of self-doubt. They just come for different reasons from different sources. So a stay at home mother’s doubt might stem from the fact that she’s not financially contributing to her family, where a working mother’s self-doubt might stem from not being around or home enough. But it’s pretty compelling to know that as women and mothers, we have far more in common than we often believe, and we have a lot of the same doubts and fears and insecurities.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that, Katherine. What areas of a mother’s life are affected by this self-doubt? Because if I understand correctly, it just kind of permeates everything.

Katherine Wintsch: Yeah, it does. And, you know, a lot of people think that maybe, oh, you’re just doubting yourself as a mother, but my research shows that if you have this dragon of self doubt, it really scorches, you know, all of the earth around you. And where we see it come up most often is in a woman’s marriage. Her relationship with her partner, how she feels about herself in that situation. Certainly, her physical appearance and all that comes with that being a woman and being judged for that. Certainly, parenting skills, but then also their careers. If you have this dragon, there’s almost no area of your life is safe. But I do think it shows up most prominently, probably in one or two areas. And for me, it was certainly in my career. And that’s where I was looking for my self-esteem. And so that’s why I was working 80 hours a week and practically killing myself to try and prove myself, because I thought if I collected enough titles and trophies and I’d finally feel good about myself and eventually realized that the world doesn’t work.

Gabe Howard: Let’s flip this conversation a little bit and talk about what women do to feed their dragons of self-doubt, because I know that we’ve been talking about a lot of external factors, but there are internal factors as well.

Katherine Wintsch: Yes, and no one knows that this dragon of self doubt exists inside of you except for you. So you’re the only one that knows it exists. So you’re the only one that can slay it. And there are a couple things that you can do to stop feeding the dragon. The first is setting more realistic expectations. As women and mothers, we think I have to make the perfect meal every night. I have to never yell at my children and I have to get the next promotion at work. And we’re just layering on the backpack of pain and weight that we’re carrying around, trying to be perfect. And you know a lot of people think that high expectations set you up for success. And I believe that. But if they’re too high, then they’re going to set you up for failure. So just kind of level setting. What you expect of yourself is important. The second way that we feed this dragon is by fearing the future. This happens with moms all the time. Say their child gets a C on a science test and all of a sudden, they’re like, oh, my gosh, I know that they’re going to be in jail by the time they’re 17.

Katherine Wintsch: I’m going to be doing their laundry for the rest of their life. I’m a horrible mother. And we often fast forward more so than men do to kind of a doomsday future. So if you can keep your head and your heart in the same time zone as your body, then that’ll save you a lot of heartache. And then the third way we feed our dragon is by comparing ourselves to other women and mothers. And this is just a fascinating sequence of events where we’ll walk into a girlfriend’s house and maybe her house is super clean and all the sudden we cascade and assume and make projections that she’s perfect in every area of her life. See a clean house, and you’re like, oh my gosh, I bet she never fights with her husband. She probably got straight A’s in high school. Her kids are obedient angels and she never burns the meatloaf. And we project this perfection onto other women, which just leaves us feeling like everybody else is perfect and we’re pathetic. And again, I’m a researcher and I know for a fact that all women are struggling with this. So you’re not alone and certainly not pathetic.

Gabe Howard: And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Sponsor Message: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe Howard: And we’re back discussing motherhood with author Katherine Wintsch. All right. Let’s talk about strategies for slaying the dragon. How can moms everywhere slay their dragon of self-doubt?

Katherine Wintsch: Well, what’s fascinating about this dragon is that you can only kill it with kindness and you have to kill it with kindness towards yourself. Finding ways to be self compassionate. Give yourself grace when you make a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. And instead of yelling at yourself and beating yourself up, chalk it up to the fact that you’re new at whatever you’re going through right now. Another thing I often talk about is teaching the main voice in your head some manners. So we all men and women have this negative voice in their head. My research shows for women it tends to be cruel, where for men it’s more critical. So you can hear this voice come up and then you can redirect it towards a friend. So I’ll give you an example that is sharing entirely too much information about myself. But it’ll make the point. I was at a hotel gym the other day on a business trip and I was exercising. And at the end of my ride, I put both of my hands on the top of my backside and felt what I felt like was two handfuls of cellulite. And then the negative voice in my head immediately was like, oh, my gosh, what must that look like? And I’m looking around to see if other people are noticing it. And so that was the dragon speaking to me. And I corrected it and I taught it some manners. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. What this looks like is that I got my rear end out of bed this morning and I put it on a bike. That’s what this looks like, period. That’s kindness towards myself. And your dragon has very little space to live when you learn to love yourself.

Gabe Howard: I really like that story so much, and I think that many of us can relate to that in so many different areas of our lives. But what you describe was that your life doesn’t seem to have a dragon anymore. What’s life like without a dragon?

Katherine Wintsch: Sometimes the echo of my dragon might come back. Like I mentioned on the exercise bike, but it’s definitely gone from my life. And I just feel freer. I feel lighter. And, you know, I still have chaos in my life, as everybody does. But the chaos around me is so much easier to deal with when I’m not also fighting the chaos inside of me. So it doesn’t make your children obey you any more or you don’t really fight with your husband any less. There’s still chaos. But when you’re calm on the inside and there’s not this beast inside of you trying to kill you, it makes the rest of your life much more manageable. And it’s much better on this side, much calmer.

Gabe Howard: I know that you’re a researcher by trade, and one of the things that you researched were how are millennial mothers being affected by self-doubt and how are they handling, battling and perceiving their self-doubt dragon. It’s fascinating to me to talk to listeners and hear how the average 40 something believes that the average 20 something has it all together and then the average 20 something believes the average 40 something has it all together. And just like you said, everybody is comparing themselves to each other, but incorrectly.

Katherine Wintsch: Without a doubt. And my research shows for millennial moms that the younger moms, the ones having all the babies right now, that it’s harder to be a mother today than it ever has been before. And I think, unfortunately, a lot of people look at the millennial generation and look down on them and say, oh, it’s a flippant generation, fly by the seat of their pants. But when you look at the time we’re living in these mothers, these young mothers are dealing with everything from bullying to school shootings to deadly peanut allergies. And these are pretty grave concerns. And it’s not something that mothers from previous generations ever had to deal with. There’s certainly no rulebook or guidebook. So there’s a lot of newness to motherhood today. And then you pile on top of that social media, millennial moms have a gateway and a doorway to the perfect lives and sometimes fake lives of millions of other mothers. You know, when my mother was making my school lunchbox, she wasn’t comparing what other mothers were serving their children for lunch. And so this constant comparison game can really wear somebody down and it certainly fuels the fire of a dragon of self-doubt.

Gabe Howard: When we talked about social media, you made the point about Fakebook. And one of the things that I just thought of right there, and you were talking about school lunches and packing lunches, I see all of these would, of course, I perceive as adorable pictures on Facebook of the children on the first day of school or the children on the first day back from holiday vacation or, you know, they’re holding their little lunchbox. And I do see some of my parent friends. You know, I packed Molly the perfect lunch today. And of course, they have a perfect picture of food. But it never occurred to me that other mothers might be looking at that picture and thinking to themselves, oh, man, when I make a sandwich, the top piece of bread doesn’t line up with the bottom piece of bread and it has a hole in it from where I gripped it to tight, and are those brand name Ziploc bags? Yeah, I don’t even put it into Ziploc. Oh, you’re using Tupperware? I can see how all of this just becomes incredibly overwhelming. Do you think that it would be wise to not follow other mothers on social media? Do you think that the dragon lives on social media?

Katherine Wintsch: Well, I think it’s a good question, and I would say that if for a short term strategy, if looking at other people’s perfection really makes you feel like crap about yourself, then yes, I would unfollow the people that are known to do that. And I would start following more women and mothers that are real and keep it real, like Celeste Barber is an Internet sensation of Instagram fame, and she has over six million followers and she’s always just making fun of all of her mistakes and her body size. And, you know, she’s having a hoot. So you can follow people that keep it real. But it’s really only a short term strategy, because the truth is and I talk about this in Slay Like a Mother, you have to slay this dragon of self-doubt. And once you do, you will care a lot less about what other people post on Facebook. So Instagram used to make me crazy and make me feel less than an inferior compared to other mothers. But now that I don’t have that dragon telling me I’m a loser, I can look at other pictures of mothers and I can be happy for them in that moment. They had a great moment, but I have my great moments, too. And maybe it’s not making a lunchbox. Maybe it’s making a great book or a presentation at work or something else. So the long term strategy is you have to learn to love yourself. And when you do, you care less about what other people are doing.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I was a little surprised to learn is that you talk about struggling and suffering. And to me, those always seemed like the same thing. But there’s a difference between struggling and suffering.

Katherine Wintsch: The difference between struggling and suffering is that struggling is brought on by the external circumstances in your life. So making dinner for your family every night, trying to get a promotion, trying to stay married, dealing with a cancer diagnosis in your family. Those are all struggles but suffering that’s brought on by the internal forces in your life. And that’s when you yell at yourself for not handling the struggles better or for having those struggles in the first place. The interesting part about the research that I’ve done shows that the goal is to struggle. That’s the human existence. You’re going to struggle today. You’re going to struggle tomorrow. You’re going to struggle the next day. And you can’t buy your way out of it. Move your way out of it. Grow your way out of it. You know, that’s the human existence. But suffering occurs at your own hand and no one can make you feel like crap about yourself without your permission. And so if you’re causing your suffering, then you can uncaused it and you can learn to love yourself and you can just accept that life comes with struggles and that you’re not weird or crazy or inept because you’re struggling right now. It just means you’re normal.

Gabe Howard: I really, really like that one of the tips that you have is to turn self-doubt into self-love. And an example that you gave really, really spoke to me. I just love it so much. You said find a classic love song station on the radio and turn up the volume. Close your eyes and imagine you singing it to yourself. In other words, that it was written by you for you. Now, full disclosure, I often do this while driving, so I do not close my eyes. But I want to say I’m not a mother, I’m not a parent. But I don’t know. This works. I imagine myself on stage as Mick Jagger or Freddie Mercury or just whomever. It does make me feel better. And I imagine that my life is a lot less stressful than the average moms. So I just loved that example. Thank you so much, Katherine. We’re nearing the end of the show. So what final bit of advice do you have for mothers struggling with self-doubt?

Katherine Wintsch: Start talking about it. And you cannot fix what you do not acknowledge. Start to listen for that negative voice in your head. That’s the first step. Just realize that you’re yelling at yourself all day, every day, and then start to say it out loud. Tell a girlfriend. Find a therapist to talk to for 30 minutes. But if this only stays in your heart and your head and your soul, it’s just gonna eat you alive. Find the courage to say out loud how you really feel about yourself. And that’s really going to spark and ignite your healing.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful, Katherine. Where can folks find you on the Web? And where can they get your book Slay Like a Mother?

Katherine Wintsch: My book, Slay Like a Mother, is available everywhere books are sold, at Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent booksellers. And then it’s also available on Audible. So you can listen to it if you like. And it’s my voice reading it so I can read you your bedtime stories if you like. And certainly, invite others to follow us on Slay Like a Mother.com, that is on Facebook and Instagram.

Gabe Howard: Katherine, thank you so much for being here, and I have no doubt that you are going to help many mothers slay their dragons.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: You’re very welcome. All right, listen up, everybody, I’ve got a couple of favors to ask you. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe. Give us a rating. Give us a review. Use your words and tell people why you like the show. Share us on social media and do the same. E-mail us to a friend that you think would benefit. We have a private Facebook group. You can find it really, really easily just by going to PsychCentral.com/FBShow. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The Psych Central Podcast. Want your audience to be wowed at your next event? Feature an appearance and LIVE RECORDING of the Psych Central Podcast right from your stage! For more details, or to book an event, please email us at [email protected]. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/Show or on your favorite podcast player. Psych Central is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, Psych Central offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at gabehoward.com. Thank you for listening and please share with your friends, family, and followers.

Podcast: Motherhood and The Dragon of Self-Doubt syndicated from

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erraticfairy · 4 years ago

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Podcast: Motherhood and The Dragon of Self-Doubt

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Guest information for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Podcast Episode

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Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: What exactly is the dragon of self-doubt?

Gabe Howard: And how was this dragon of self-doubt born?

Gabe Howard: So here they are. They’re living with the dragon of self-doubt. What does that feel like? Or maybe more specifically, what did it feel like for you?

Gabe Howard: Now, if I understand correctly, self-doubt doesn’t discriminate.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that, Katherine. What areas of a mother’s life are affected by this self-doubt? Because if I understand correctly, it just kind of permeates everything.

Gabe Howard: And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful, Katherine. Where can folks find you on the Web? And where can they get your book Slay Like a Mother?

Gabe Howard: Katherine, thank you so much for being here, and I have no doubt that you are going to help many mothers slay their dragons.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/3dQRZXZ via theshiningmind.com

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whorchataaa · 4 years ago

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Podcast: Motherhood and The Dragon of Self-Doubt

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Guest information for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Podcast Episode

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Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: What exactly is the dragon of self-doubt?

Gabe Howard: And how was this dragon of self-doubt born?

Gabe Howard: So here they are. They’re living with the dragon of self-doubt. What does that feel like? Or maybe more specifically, what did it feel like for you?

Gabe Howard: Now, if I understand correctly, self-doubt doesn’t discriminate.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that, Katherine. What areas of a mother’s life are affected by this self-doubt? Because if I understand correctly, it just kind of permeates everything.

Gabe Howard: And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful, Katherine. Where can folks find you on the Web? And where can they get your book Slay Like a Mother?

Gabe Howard: Katherine, thank you so much for being here, and I have no doubt that you are going to help many mothers slay their dragons.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

from https://ift.tt/3dQRZXZ Check out https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/

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ashley-unicorn · 4 years ago

Text

Podcast: Motherhood and The Dragon of Self-Doubt

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Guest information for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Podcast Episode

About The Psych Central Podcast Host

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Katherine Wintsch- Self-Doubt Motherhood’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

Gabe Howard: What exactly is the dragon of self-doubt?

Gabe Howard: And how was this dragon of self-doubt born?

Gabe Howard: So here they are. They’re living with the dragon of self-doubt. What does that feel like? Or maybe more specifically, what did it feel like for you?

Gabe Howard: Now, if I understand correctly, self-doubt doesn’t discriminate.

Gabe Howard: Thank you so much for that, Katherine. What areas of a mother’s life are affected by this self-doubt? Because if I understand correctly, it just kind of permeates everything.

Gabe Howard: And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe Howard: That’s wonderful, Katherine. Where can folks find you on the Web? And where can they get your book Slay Like a Mother?

Gabe Howard: Katherine, thank you so much for being here, and I have no doubt that you are going to help many mothers slay their dragons.

Katherine Wintsch: Thanks for having me, Gabe.

from https://ift.tt/3dQRZXZ Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/

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